Alle afleveringen
24 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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We Read Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask
21 oktober 2026 · 36 min
Eleanor and Alasdair enjoy a proper Scottish Halloween. That means turnip carving, guising and a copy of 1993's The Haunted Mask. It's number eleven in the best-selling Goosebumps series, but is it really scary? What's its connection to Che Guevara? And does R. L. Stine actually know how masks work? Lees meer
Listener beware... you're in for some Canadian accents.
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We Read The Water-Babies
19 september 2026 · 30 min
Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, made a big splash in 1863. It may have helped end child labour in Britain, but is it actually readable? In this episode, Eleanor and Alasdair encounter a children's classic that's allegorical, didactic, flippant, Christian, scientific and obsessively anti-Irish. Lees meer
Will Alasdair be able to contain his exasperation? Did Eleanor cheat and read the abridged version? And Charles, mate, what did the Irish ever do to you?
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We Read The Boxcar Children
19 augustus 2026 · 38 min
No aspiring orphan should be without a copy of Gertrude Chandler Warner's 1924 classic, The Boxcar Children. Her bafflingly successful mystery adventures were a huge part of ABK's childhood. But what will Eleanor make of these candy-sweet tramps and their highly-idealised life on the run? Lees meer
Content Warning: Like edgy comedian Ricky Gervais, we do not censor this whimsical kid-lit podcast. Please don't play it to your children unless you're a cool parent who lets them swear and stuff.
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We Read Comet in Moominland
19 juli 2026 · 40 min
They're soft, they're white, they're somewhere between cute and creepy — it's Eleanor and Alasdair. And for this episode, we read Tove Jansson's 1946 adventure Comet In Moominland (Kometjakten) translated by Elizabeth Portch. Lees meer
We ask, what does it feel like to touch a Moomintroll? How do you pronounce Tove? And is there any better response to environmental catastrophe than baking a cake?
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We Read Winnie the Pooh
19 juni 2026 · 40 min
Here are Eleanor and Alasdair, coming down the stairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head. That's right, Eleanor has murdered Alasdair. But not before recording this month's episode all about A. A. Milne's 1926 classic Winnie the Pooh. Lees meer
Will Eleanor be able to contain her disdain for the 1966 Disney movie? Will Alasdair's Alan Bennett impression comes out more like Les Dennis doing Mavis from Coronation Street? And are ANY Winnie the Pooh quotes genuine?
In the words of A. A. Milne, "I pity the fool who gets on a plane."
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We Read Charlotte's Web
19 mei 2026 · 35 min
Just like women be shopping, E. B. White. And White's 1952 novel Charlotte's Web is a blackly comical tear-jerker about a spider coming to the aid of a pig who doesn't want to be eaten. Are Eleanor and Alasdair fans of spiders? Or are we absolutely terrified of them? Lees meer
Well, what do you think? Based on everything you know about us, do you think we like spiders?
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We Read Johnny and the Bomb
19 april 2026 · 43 min
Eleanor and Alasdair step into the trousers of time, with Terry Pratchett's 1996 novel Johnny and the Bomb. Five inept British teens find themselves in World War Two with bags of time on their hands. Lees meer
Was Johnny and the Bomb "The Bomb"? Or will it bomb in our estimation? And who were the real baddies in WW2?
(It was the Nazis.)
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We Read The Cat in the Hat & The Tiger Who Came to Tea
19 maart 2026 · 30 min
1957–1968 was a golden age of big cats breaking into kids' houses and smashing up the joint. For this episode, Eleanor & Alasdair read Dr Seuss's The Cat in the Hat and Judith Kerr's The Tiger Who Came to Tea. We aim to decide, scientifically, which of the two books is best (with absolutely no favouritism shown towards the one we obviously like more). Lees meer
Will we like the American one?
Perhaps we'll find it much more fun?
Of course, there's not much chance of that.
'Cos Eleanor hates that creepy cat.
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We Read The Wind in the Willows
19 februari 2026 · 37 min
Eleanor and Alasdair are fighting! Eleanor is in love with Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, but for Alasdair... it's complicated. The 1908 classic is a tale of motorcars, misadventure and yearning glances on the riverbank. But is it really a kid's book? Or is it a boring work of art? Lees meer
Poop! Poop!
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We Read The Borrowers
19 januari 2026 · 35 min
She's small. She's ginger. She's very hard to get out of your house. No, not Eleanor Morton. We're talking about Arietty Clock, the tiny teenage protagonist of Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers. The Borrowers are a diminutive people who love stealing almost as much as they love the British class system. Lees meer
But has this tale of curtain-climbing social climbers aged well? Find out in Series 2 of Eleanor & Alasdair Read That.
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We Read The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (Part 2)
19 december 2025 · 28 min
The stone table cracks and Eleanor & Alasdair return to Narnia. It's time to pass judgement on The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. Eleanor sings the praises of the dodgy beaver costumes in the 1988 BBC adaptation and Alasdair gets annoyed about a stupid kids' film for babies. But is C. S. Lewis's book a Turkish Delight? Or is it a Turkish Delight (derogatory)? Lees meer
We recommend you go back and listen to Part 1 before this episode. (Unless you're one of those people who thinks you should read The Magician's Nephew before the other Narnia books, and you prefer it when callbacks make no sense.)
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We Read The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (Part 1)
17 december 2025 · 36 min
Always-winter-but-never-Christmas starts earlier every year, doesn't it? Eleanor and Alasdair read C. S. Lewis's furniture-based children's classic The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (1950). And we've split this bumper Yuletide edition of the pod in two. Lees meer
In Part 1, we recount the story of Lucy's adventures in Narnia, in what a cynical person might call too much detail. We enjoy a platonic hot-tub with Santa. And, for some reason, George Bernard Shaw replaces Liam Neeson in Taken. We hope you enjoy this episode, and join us in Part 2, for a mixture of incisive literary analysis and some truly appalling New Zealand accents. Sorry, accints.
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We Read Watership Down
19 november 2025 · 38 min
Eleanor & Alasdair take you down to Watership City, where the grass is green and the girls are... hang on, where are all the girls? Lees meer
We read Watership Down, Richard Adams's 1972 epic. It's Brer Rabbit meets Mad Max, but does the novel live up to the movie's grisly reputation? Is it really a kids' book? And why do we keep singing the X-Men theme?
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We Read The Worst Witch
19 oktober 2025 · 35 min
A boarding school for witches? Imagine that! No, not Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Bigotry. We're talking about Miss Cackle's Academy, from Jill Murphy's 1974 bestseller The Worst Witch. In this episode, Alasdair discovers the ropey TV Movie from 1986 and Eleanor learns that it's possible to identify with Mildred Hubble a bit too much. Lees meer
Will the Worst Witch make the grade? Can we avoid talking about Harry Bloody Potter? And did Eleanor's childhood bullies have a point, actually?
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We Read The Railway Children (Live)
19 september 2025 · 37 min
The Railway Children is an Edwardian children's classic and health & safety nightmare. Edith "E" Nesbit's novel is packed with unforgettable characters, railway mishaps and an exiled Russian dissident who no one remembers. In this episode, recorded live at the Edinburgh Fringe, we learn that trespassing on a train line is OK, as long as you're a middle-class child. Lees meer
Will the book withstand the edgy, late-night comedy of Eleanor and Alasdair? What will we learn about the inevitable triumph of international socialism? And exactly how sexy was Bernard Cribbins in the film?
We won't take no charity from no one, but if you enjoyed this episode you can buy us a coffee: ko-fi.com/readthat_podcast
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We Read The Story of Tracy Beaker
19 augustus 2025 · 27 min
Eleanor and Alasdair read The Story of Tracy Beaker. Jacqueline Wilson's 1991 hit has spawned numerous sequels and TV spin-offs, but Alasdair has missed out on all of them due to being a boy and man, in that order. The protagonist and narrator, Tracy Beaker, is an irrepressible kid in a care home and “the Millennial Holden Caulfield” (according to Eleanor). Lees meer
Will Eleanor's childhood nostalgia survive re-reading the book? Will Alasdair “get narked” at the weirdly 1970s dialogue? And WHEN will we start a spin-off podcast called Bed-wet Buddies?
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We Read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
19 juli 2025 · 36 min
We're all mad here. Specifically, Eleanor is mad about people saying Lewis Carroll wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on drugs and Alasdair is mad about the Tim Burton film being rubbish. For this episode, we read Carroll's enormously influential 1865 novel, and we asked: do books actually need plots? Or will some 160 year-old puns do? Lees meer
Content Warning: We make allusions to the controversy surrounding Carroll, without going into detail.
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We Read The Secret Garden
19 juni 2025 · 34 min
Sickly, spoiled and terrified of the outside world, Eleanor and Alasdair read The Secret Garden. Frances Hodgson Burnett's kidlit classic is the story of an obnoxious little girl who goes to Yorkshire on her gap year and really finds herself. Is the book an ode to the healing powers of nature? Or is it a hippy-fascist self-help tract? And which film adaptation is best — the one Eleanor watched as a kid, or the steampunk Mormon version? Lees meer
Content Warning: References to ableism and British colonialism. And we inaccurately describe Yorkshire as "a big county" when it is, in fact, four counties.
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We Read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
19 mei 2025 · 34 min
Like a pair of creepy twins, Eleanor and Alasdair venture up Alderley Edge to meet the Wizard. We read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner's 1960 folk horror classic. Is it too scary for kids, or just too scary for Alasdair? Did Eleanor really fall asleep at the end of the audiobook? And what, exactly, does a rustic Cheshire accent sound like? Lees meer
We simply don't know.
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We Read The Witches
19 april 2025 · 38 min
Eleanor and Alasdair read a Roald Dahl book about some absolutely horrid women. "Which one?" you quite reasonably ask. It's The Witches: a grotesquely funny revenge caper fuelled by 'stranger danger' anxiety. What do you do when a beloved children's author is a bit of a bigot? Which of Dahl's books scandalised nine-year-old Eleanor's schoolteacher? And exactly what accent was Anne Hathaway doing in the movie? Listen, and find out if The Witches really is a revolting classic or just a rotten stinker. Lees meer
Content Warning: References to antisemitism, misogyny & fatphobia. And we do impressions of the actor Bill Paterson.
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We Read Peter Rabbit
19 maart 2025 · 32 min
Eleanor and Alasdair read The Tale of Peter Rabbit, the story of a semi-nude rabbit tormenting the Scotsman who killed his father. Beatrix Potter's first book was a world-wide smash hit, but is it actually good? And would it be improved by the addition of James Corden? Alasdair watched the movie, so you don't have to. Lees meer
Content Warning: Eleanor calls Squirrel Nutkin a c***.
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We Read Treasure Island
19 februari 2025 · 31 min
Ha harr! Eleanor and Alasdair read Treasure Island by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who is Scottish. Treasure Island is a tale of deadly danger and dubious male role models — basically like social media today. It's a very famous story, but is it actually good? Will Jim Hawkins's adventure buckle your swashes? And is fifteen men on a dead man's chest just good maritime fun? Or a health and safety nightmare? Lees meer
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We Read The Famous Five
19 januari 2025 · 33 min
Putting the ginger in ginger beer, Eleanor and Alasdair read Five Go To Demon's Rocks by Enid Blyton. The Internet Famous Two join some posh children and a dog on an incredibly dangerous and wholly unsupervised adventure. Does Enid Blyton deserve her controversial reputation? Will the kids survive a week in an abandoned lighthouse? And are all working class people also smugglers? Lees meer
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We Read The Hobbit - Pilot Episode
20 december 2024 · 30 min
Eleanor and Alasdair read The Hobbit. J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel is a millennial horror story about a guy who has to attend an unexpected party. It's also a children's fantasy classic, and the inspiration for three obscure art-house films. But is it good? Would Eleanor read it to her hypothetical child? Will Alasdair enjoy reading it for the first time? And is it really possible to tell the dwarves apart? Lees meer